Jeff wrote:
KLC Lewis wrote:
Never argue bouyancy with Roger Long. ;-)

Why? I think Roger is making a big deal of a very fine distinction. Its
true that an object that is said to be "buoyant" does not generate a
force by itself, the force really comes from water pressure which in
turn is caused by gravity. But, the force is real and buoyancy is
simply a convenient way to aggregate the net pressure on an object. If
there were no force (regardless of what we call it) holding up a ship,
it would sink.

There are, of course, imaginary forces, such as Coriolis which appears
in non-inertial reference frames, but that is a different thing.

Budding naval architects should teach themselves the rudiments of
dimensional analysis... and then they won't make appalling cockups in
their use of incompatible units.